rapier, he glides to the door, his wild harp slung behind him. Virag reaches the door in two ungainly stilthops, his tail cocked, and deftly claps sideways on the wall a pusyellow flybill, butting it with his head.) THE FLYBILL: K. II. Post No Bills. Strictly confidential. Dr Hy Franks. HENRY: All is lost now. (Virag unscrews his head in a trice and holds it under his arm.) VIRAG'S HEAD: Quack! (Exeunt severally.) STEPHEN: (Over his shoulder to zoe) You would have preferred the fighting parson who founded the protestant error. But beware Antisthenes, the dog sage, and the last end of Arius Heresiarchus. The agony in the closet. LYNCH: All one and the same God to her. STEPHEN: (Devoutly) And sovereign Lord of all things. FLORRY: (To Stephen) I'm sure you're a spoiled priest. Or a monk. LYNCH: He is. A cardinal's son. STEPHEN: Cardinal sin. Monks of the screw. (His Eminence Simon Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Primate of all Ireland, appears in the doorway, dressed in red soutane, sandals and socks. Seven dwarf simian acolytes, also in red, cardinal sins, uphold his train, peeping under it. He wears a battered silk hat sideways on his head. His thumbs are stuck in his armpits and his palms outspread. Round his neck hangs a rosary of corks ending on his breast in a corkscrew cross. Releasing his thumbs, he invokes grace from on high with large wave gestures and proclaims with bloated pomp:) THE CARDINAL: Conservio lies captured He lies in the lowest dungeon With manacles and chains around his limbs Weighing upwards of three tons. (He looks at all for a moment, his right eye closed tight, his left cheek puffed out. Then, unable to repress his merriment, he rocks to and fro, arms akimbo, and sings with broad rollicking humour:) O, the poor little fellow Hihihihihis legs they were yellow He was plump, fat and heavy and brisk as a snake But some bloody savage To graize his white cabbage He murdered Nell Flaherty's duckloving drake. (A multitude of midges swarms white over his robe. He scratches himself with crossed arms at his ribs, grimacing, and exclaims:) I'm suffering the agony of the damned. By the hoky fiddle, thanks be to Jesus those funny little chaps are not unanimous. If they were they'd walk me off the face of the bloody globe. (His